FG Plans to Increase Tuition Fee in Universities to N350,000 - ASUU

Academic Staff Union of Universities, Accuses Federal Government of Planing to Increase School/Tuition Fees in Public Universities to N350,000

The union’s Ibadan Zonal Coordinator, Dr. Ade Adejumo, stated this
when he addressed reporters at the Oyo State Correspondents’ Chapel of
Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Ibadan, the state capital.

He
said it was vital for ASUU to let the public know that there could be
labour crisis in federal universities, adding that the proposal led to
the breakdown of the 2017/2018 renegotiation of the 2009 FGN/ASUU
agreement.

He said, “The union is again constrained to draw the
attention of Nigerian public to an impending labour crisis in the
Nigerian universities as a result of the insensitivity of the Nigerian
government to issues critical to the survival of the educational system
in Nigeria.

“It is no longer news that the renegotiation, which
Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, promised was going to last
for only six weeks, has broken down.

“The union was confronted
with a situation where government is bent on imposing tuition fees,
beginning from N350,000, on students in the Nigerian public owned
tertiary institutions.

“As to how the students will raise such
money, we were told that the government will establish Education Bank,
where students will access credit facilities and pay back on completion
of their studies.

“The union, speaking from the background that
education is the right and not privilege of every Nigerian child, made
frantic efforts to make pragmatic explanations on the negative
implications and the non-feasibility of this scheme to representatives
of government to no avail.”

Adejumo said that the leader of the
government team was bent on the introduction of the high fee, stating
that the union would do everything to resist it.